Chilidog wrote:You realize, don't you, that the "doorbuster" sale items are cheap crap designed and made just for this sale?

Very often, it's leftover stock that has been superseded by newer technology, which the manufacturers sell in bulk discount and the retailers snap up for their doorbuster specials. Which pretty much describes all of the black friday tv deals I've seen this year. We're at stage two of a three-step technological upgrade in flatscreen televisions. If you need a tv, or just want a cheap one for the time being, go ahead and buy. Otherwise, postpone your upgrade plans for a couple more years when the true UHD standard becomes the default television.

Me, I just bought a few things from Amazon that were on my wishlist for christmas presents. One was a hardcover book. After dinner, I discovered that Amazon is offering a 30% discount (up to $10 value) on any one print book purchased, using the promo code HOLIDAY30. Since I'd already placed my order, I spent the next couple hours trying to get through to customer service. When I finally succeeded and asked to have the discount applied to my order (which hasn't even shipped yet), I was told No. Thanks, Amazon.

Costco's taking $10 off the purchase of one pork loin tomorrow. I'm gonna get me one, since I'm heading there to buy a couple packages of Eneloop rechargeable batteries.

In the department stores, the specials on clothing, shoes, etc. are all made in China just for this day. That is a fact.

I've got one of the Lenovo Yoga 2-in-1 laptops that I've been really i pressed with. There's nothing fancy about it, but even though it's a mid-range model, I've yet to find anything I want to use it for that it hasn't been able to handle. I've even been able to use it to play some MMORPGS i like and The Sims. I also really like the way I can use it as a regular laptop, fold the keyboard back so it's face down and have a tablet screen that I can use without having to hold it up, or flip it all the way back and use it like a regular, hand-held tablet.I've also found AmiDuOS, a nice Android emulator,that I can use to run Android apps on the laptop, which is really handy.

Recently, we went to a Black Friday in Hawaii. Walmart had some electronics at very low prices for Hawaii. The crowd was aggressive. The items that interested us weren't available or were sold early in an attempt to control the crowds. I was hit in the head with a large tv by some guy who was freaking out over having grabbed one of the few bargains. It was a miserable and painful experience. We wound up at Starbucks in a nearby mall, meeting up with friends who also tried to get some deals. Then we all went home and shopped - if at all - on the internet. No more Black Fridays for us!

Amazon emailed me 1-2 weeks ago, saying my February purchase of a laptop entitled me to a free year of ACD. It truly is unlimited storage of everything from all your computers. And you can view and stream your stuff from anywhere.

But what happens after a year? It seems that cloud storage is fine for stuff you just want to keep temporarily and don't care if you lose it when the company decide to hold it hostage or else change to a different platform or go out of business or 'lose' it by hacking or accident.

Nuts. W2 won't spend any money today but we need to backup our hard drive so we can upgrade to a new operating system. Amazon cloud drive for $5 doesn't sway him.

"[Moderate] doesn't mean you don't have views. It just means your views aren't predictable ideologically one way or the other, and you're trying to follow the facts where they lead and reach your own conclusions."
-- Sen. King (R-ME)

Picked up a Seagate Expansion 5TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0 (STEB5000100) on Amazon for about $100, just incredible on the price drops. Live TV is coming to Prime next.

Hard to imagine Amazon Cloud will be going away... the service is bigger already than the next 4 competitors combined. "In its first earnings report, Amazon finally lifted the veil on its cloud computing service, AWS. The business generated $1.57 billion in revenue Q1 and is pulling in about $6 billion per year.Apr 27, 2015"

Wal-Mart is moving “Cyber Monday” to Sunday because people now have fast Internet in their homes, the U.S. retailer said Monday. All 2,000 of Wal-Mart’s Cyber Monday deals will begin Sunday at 8 p.m. ET.
***
Part of the move was also influenced by the fact there is a “significant spike” in online searches for “Cyber Monday” on Sunday evening.

Wal-Mart said its merchants had “closely watched customer search and demand trends in the months leading up to the holidays” and saw spikes in the past week for “Star Wars” toys, 4K TVs, drones, Beats by Dre headphones, Fitbit and 3-D printers. Walmart.com said it has increased the number of items related to these searches.

A 65 inch LG 4K Ultra HDTV for $799 plus free shipping as well as a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 for $599 are among the products being sold during the discount shopping days.

On Black Friday I bought a bottle of beer. I went to the local and as of today closed Haggen's Market in Calabasas-Woodland Hills. Everything was on sale. I just wanted some booze and some fruit. The fruit was all gone so all I got was a beer.

Haggen's Markets was a prosperous little chain up SueDB way which decided to expand from 18 stores to 146 stores, outside of its region late last year. It bought up Albertson's, Safeway and Vons stores that the merged company -- Albertson's -- couldn't keep because of antitrust considerations. The name changed in August of this year. Right around the time Haggen declared BK. One of the fastest bankruptcies, if not the fastest, ever for an expanded company.

I felt a little guilty as I was leaving that I wasn't doing my part, so . . .

I'll give cash as gifts and wait for Boxing Day and January to buy things I really might need.

Thanksgiving evening I was showing my sister-in-law my brand new super cool Anker PowerCore 20100 battery pack which I had just received the week before - $40 from Amazon. She logged onto Amazon, looked it up, and it happened to be one of their "Today's Deals" for something like $29. Don't you hate when that happen? Well, good for her, she ordered one.

Sterngard Friegen wrote:On Black Friday I bought a bottle of beer. I went to the local and as of today closed Haggen's Market in Calabasas-Woodland Hills. Everything was on sale. I just wanted some booze and some fruit. The fruit was all gone so all I got was a beer.

Haggen's Markets was a prosperous little chain up SueDB way which decided to expand from 18 stores to 146 stores, outside of its region late last year. It bought up Albertson's, Safeway and Vons stores that the merged company -- Albertson's -- couldn't keep because of antitrust considerations. The name changed in August of this year. Right around the time Haggen declared BK. One of the fastest bankruptcies, if not the fastest, ever for an expanded company.

I felt a little guilty as I was leaving that I wasn't doing my part, so . . .

I'll give cash as gifts and wait for Boxing Day and January to buy things I really might need.

Sorry to see them go. They seemed like such nice boys (Haggan Bros).
Well, it leaves us the Fred Meyer (Kroger) across the street from the Albertsons (still there) next to CostCo next to Wally world, next to Home Depot.